The bear-man Buck's javelin had incredible force. Yu Lian had no doubt it could have punched through a tank's armor. But his opponent had already prepared for it, deploying a force-field shield that formed a transparent, rippling wall of light.
Clang! The javelin struck the orb of light with a sound like metal hitting a steel plate. But instead of bouncing off like a bullet, it was deflected a few degrees and kept hurtling forward, lodging in the rock dragon's leathery wing. The rock dragon winced in pain and opened its jaws to bite the rebar. But just then, Lieutenant Monder, looking every bit like a legendary hero from the age of cold weapons, charged up to it and swung his sword in a horizontal slash.
The blade, already thrumming with a buzzing roar, threw up a shower of sparks against the dragon's steel shell. The shrill, grating screech cut like a knife, making everyone's ears ache. It sounded just like steel castings being cut in a steel mill.
Lieutenant Monder's eyes were bloodshot, and his teeth were clenched. Sparks flew onto his powered armor and even his face, but he didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow. He was hard as nails—and every bit as cool.
Yu Lian leaped down from the wall with his rifle in hand. The impact made his legs buckle, and he stumbled, nearly falling. He could almost hear the nanomachines inside him crying out in protest, but he still used the momentum to roll, drawing on the experience of his previous life. He rolled past a stretch of burning rubble, slid past a toppled steel frame, and came to a stop behind the rock dragon. He pulled a grenade from his belt, removed the safety, and wedged it into a crack between the scales on its split back armor—the very wound Ina had struck earlier.
Yu Lian clutched his head and rolled back behind the steel frame. Lieutenant Monder had clearly seen what he'd done. The middle-aged man, who had once again shifted from greasy uncle to master swordsman, abruptly pulled his blade back, dodged the rock dragon's bite, and leaped two steps backward. It wasn't graceful, but it was nimble and sharp.
Powered exoskeletons really are great! I'm missing my armor frame more and more. Yu Lian covered his ears.
A muffled explosion sent the monster's scales and blood spraying everywhere, slamming it back down to the ground.
Yu Lian poked his head out from behind the steel frame. His first glance wasn't at the badly wounded rock dragon, but at Ina, who had leaned halfway out from the turret as if she meant to come help.
"Ina, don't worry about us!" Yu Lian shouted.
Ina decisively ducked back inside. After a brief pause in firing, the autocannon she operated roared to life again.
"Everyone, hold your positions! Guard your posts!" Yu Lian shouted to the others. He snatched a high-carbon crystal sword from the ground, dodged the rock dragon's tail as it whipped wildly in pain, and slid around to its flank.
He drew on the power of the Spirit of the Universe, feeling the strange energy coursing smoothly through his arm. With a casual sweep of his sword, he turned aside the wing bone the rock dragon had raised to block the blade, using a mere ounce of strength to overcome its greater force. Then he thrust through the gap, driving the sword deep into the dragon's side.
Yu Lian had struck right where the armor on its belly met the scales on its back—the weakest point on the rock dragon's body. If an expert had been there to see it, they would have called him the real master swordsman, and rated him far above Lieutenant Monder.
That was hardly surprising. In his previous life, Yu Lian had mastered the entire "Imperial Assault Trooper Swordsmanship" curriculum, including the secret Fifth Form, taught only to elite special forces, and the Sixth Form, reserved for the Starrealm Knights.
Mental memories couldn't replace muscle memory, of course, and the difference between his body now and the one from his previous life was enormous. But then, wasn't there also psionics—a decidedly unscientific power?
That was right. Psions could use their abilities in place of physical stamina and strength, unleash superhuman power, and perform actions that defied common sense, just like something out of a martial arts novel. This extraordinary power had given rise to countless martial arts schools across the universe, each flourishing and competing with the others. The whole universe was brimming with martial virtue, and a golden age was right on schedule...
Well, a golden age for cold weapons! Nothing wrong with that.
Of course, combining psionic power with martial techniques took considerable discipline, skill, and combat experience. Even advanced psions called "masters" could be clumsy at it, let alone a mere sensitive like Yu Lian, who hadn't even seen the shadow of a star ring and hadn't yet begun his training.
That was especially true if their star ring wasn't related to combat.
Fortunately, Yu Lian's body might have been weak, and his psionic strength barely enough to make him a sensitive, but experience was the one thing he had in abundance.
That was true of his mastery of martial techniques, his understanding of psionics, and his ability to bring the two together.
His sword seemed to set off a chainsaw-like vibration in the air, cutting a serious wound into the rock dragon's belly. A large amount of dark, brownish-yellow fluid seeped out. It had a sharp smell but wasn't very viscous, making it hard to tell whether it was blood or some other bodily fluid. No wonder scientists had always struggled to classify the creature as either an "insect" or a "beast."
After landing his hit, Yu Lian didn't try to pull out his sword. He let go and quickly retreated. As a renowned wanderer who roamed the stars, he would never make such a rookie mistake.
Sure enough, he had barely retreated a few steps when a sudden spike of earth burst up where he'd been standing. Looking closer, he saw two sharp hooked claws protruding from the monster's spine, each attached to a tentacle covered in tiny barbs. One had burrowed into the ground—the very one that had just ambushed Yu Lian. The other lashed out like a steel whip, cracking through the scorching air with a sharp BANG and striking Youyou, who was charging in to reinforce them.
The second-biggest giant on the team flew backward like a kite with its strings cut. He didn't make a sound as he crashed into a pile of rubble beside the wall, and for a while, he couldn't even get up.
Still, Sergeant Youyou was wearing powered armor, so he should be fine, right? Probably...
Besides, he hadn't gone down without helping at all. The sight of such a massive man in powered armor charging in had, for an instant, drawn nearly all the rock dragon's attention. His body had also blocked the bear-man sergeant behind him.
Taking cover behind his comrade's "head," Baka charged up beside the rock dragon, still gripping his oversized custom power axe in both hands. He roared and swung the axe, smashing it into—well, into the sword Yu Lian had left embedded in the rock dragon. At first glance, it looked like he was driving in a pile. The blow hammered the blade another half a foot deeper, leaving only the hilt sticking out.
Yu Lian sucked in a breath. Even he could feel that one.
Judging from that blow alone, anyone who thought the seemingly wild, hot-tempered bear-man warrior was just a mindless brute was the real idiot.
Normally, the monster would have flapped its wings and fled by now. The rock dragon might be a wild animal—and it might be impossible to say whether it was an insect or a beast—but it was certainly intelligent. Yet it still made no cry of pain or fear. Balancing itself with its tail and two tentacles, it forced its body upright and opened its jaws. A dazzling light flashed within, coalesced into an orb, and shot out with a roar.
This time, its target wasn't Yu Lian and the others, who were right beside it, nor the soldiers on the wall. Once again, it aimed for the gun emplacement where Ina was.
Yu Lian was the only one there who reacted in time. Instinctively, he poured all his energy and stamina into a psionic strike, hitting the orb's trajectory and deflecting it.
The devastating orb slammed into the wall panel beside the tower. It didn't hit its target directly, but seemed to have caused irreversible damage to the steel supports beneath the sentry gun. The turret tilted noticeably, and with a creaking sound, it leaned farther and farther until it looked ready to topple at any moment. Fortunately, Ina had already leaped out of her seat and rolled across the wall.
Yu Lian breathed a sigh of relief, but immediately felt his limbs go weak. His vision swam. He knew that overusing his psionic power had put a strain on his feeble body.
But at that very moment, the rock dragon's steel-whip tentacle, tipped with a sharp hook, lashed toward him.
Yu Lian focused the last scraps of his psionic power into his arms, crouched down with his hands over his head, and prepared to take the blow in the least dignified way possible. But it never came. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the rock dragon's other tentacle had been caught by Youyou and Sergeant Baka.
The two biggest men on the team were hauling on the tentacle, pulling hard as if they were in a tug-of-war. At the same moment, the fierce "master swordsman" Lieutenant Monder charged in again. He apparently decided that the rock dragon's flapping wings were the source of its power, so he simply slashed through the membrane of one leathery wing.
The rock dragon was truly panicking now. It fired another energy bomb, but it was nowhere near as fast or powerful as the last one. It was obvious that the weapon hadn't finished cooling down, and it had fired anyway. Even so, the bomb struck Lieutenant Monder at point-blank range, then burst into a tangle of electric arcs and flames, setting him ablaze.
The lieutenant let out a muffled groan of pain, but still swung his sword again, tearing through another section of the rock dragon's wing membrane.
The rock dragon let out its first shriek of the day. It sounded like a crow being strangled to death, magnified tenfold; its panic and fury were unmistakable. Somehow, it summoned a burst of strength and flung Baka and Youyou aside with its tentacles. Then it beat its ruined wings and leaped several meters into the air, with both swords still embedded in its body, preparing to flee.
But it was too late. Yu Lian was already standing on its back, holding a power hammer he'd picked up from somewhere. He brought it down on the crown of the creature's head!
Before you continue